New York is poised to set up a huge free Wi-Fi program that could reach 80,000 people.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the NYC Technology Development Corporation and Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications will set up the network in Harlem's business districts.
Under the plan, a wireless network will be …

Harlem.

SIngle service provider

Where I've seen "free Wi-Fi City" actually work There has been a number of private providers depending on the area. If there is one company going to get the contract to provide a large-scale infrastructure then that's a lot of pork that someone else isn't getting. I agree with AC (09:49) that those who aren't getting any pork and yet see their business undermined are going to raise hell. However the fact is that it's easier and a lot faster to implement several small infrastructure projects than one huge one and for that fact alone I remain sceptical that this will work as planned.

Given there was a starbucks on almost every other block, I'd says it already has a free wifi cloud. I certainly didn't need to ever walk very far to get a signal from a free wifi connection last time I visited.

Im for public wi-fi

Where i live, the telcos decided to configure the home routers with a private and an open wi-fi lan. That way they can provide thousands of hot-spots without installing outdoor antennas. Your bill don't get lower despite the fact that its you who is provinding the electricity...but, New York or any other city in the world, could make arrangements with the telcos and pay for that free hotspots and maybe the costumers could get a disccount on their monthly bill. The problem is, how to prevent the telcos go mafia-style and fix higher prices between them...